


Lies We Tell Ourselves

by patriciatepes



Series: The Queen of St. Canard [9]
Category: Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 1991)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted robbery, F/M, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Making Out, Matter of Life and Death, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Surprise attacks, Tough choices, Villains, darker world, forced to participate in a hurtful/illegal activity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:40:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25026325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patriciatepes/pseuds/patriciatepes
Summary: Gosalyn is still trapped with Negaduck, still swimming the stormy seas of her emotions on the matter.  But, when an attempted theft goes wrong, and Morgana's life is on the line... what choice will Gosalyn have but to do the right thing?Right?
Relationships: Gosalyn Mallard/Negaduck
Series: The Queen of St. Canard [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1235501
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 11





	Lies We Tell Ourselves

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LiveJournal's HC Bingo, Wild Square, "Forced to participate in an illegal/hurtful activity." 
> 
> I've kinda sorta got the next three fics of this series planned, but, unfortunately, I don't have the time to write them planned out. So, I can't promise when I'll update, but I can promise that I shall continue to update this series. I have BIG plans for the future of this series.

Things had changed, subtly, after their date. For one, when Negaduck arrived in the room, it wasn't always about going straight to sleep—like it had been pre-date. Now, he had meals with Gosalyn. He talked with her about everything that they both felt they could safely share with one another. This, of course, left topics concerning his empire and her rebellion off the table.

There were some days that Gosalyn wondered at the way her life was now. She was still captive in Negaduck's skyscraper-turned-fortress, they were still sharing a single sleeping space, and she had already gone on a few dates with the Mallard Menace. Sometimes, at night, guilt tore her apart, sometimes rendering her sleepless. But, in her waking hours, while they sat on the couch, sometimes stealing little kisses here and there, her mind was blissfully blank. They never took it any further than a make-out session, but it would leave her world breathless and spinning.

She tried her best to keep her rational thoughts out of the equation. Especially in moments such as the one she was caught in now, with Negaduck's increasingly familiar weight pressing in on top of her, encircling her, as he kissed her and nibbled at her neck over and over. But, after a while, when her body reached that inevitable moment of choice—will she go through with it this time, or is this all just some sort of perverse survival mechanism?—she let loose a long sigh, turning her head a little too far to be just a suggestion for more necking. Negaduck, to his credit, was always quick to catch the hint. He caught her left cheek in his hand, gently turning her face back toward his for a final kiss. She allowed him this, despite her guilt rearing its ugly head again.

_He killed your father! He's a heartless monster! And you_ like _his kisses, his touches? What does that make you?_

The voice in her head was screaming, and if it had a physical form, it would be jumping up and down, pounding its webbed feet against the floor of her mind. She sighed as the kiss ended, and they both righted themselves on the couch.

"And what horrible name did you call yourself this time? Or are we sticking with 'monster'?"

Gosalyn stared at the Mallard Menace, a little wide-eyed. This playful, joking Negaduck was a completely new creature to her. She was used to his threats of destruction, his carefully plotted plans for deception, his cleverly crafted insults. But she had given the signal that she was done with their intimacy, and he had backed off. It was almost considerate. Although, she had a feeling that she shouldn't say as much to him. She curled her legs underneath herself, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Very funny."

He shrugged. "I'm hilarious. Most people around me just don't get to live long enough to find out."

She arched a brow at him, and he shrugged again. She rolled her eyes. Resting an elbow on the couch's arm, she propped her head in her hand.

"Monster, if you must know."

Now it was Negaduck's turn to roll his eyes. "You're not a monster, Gos."

"I just had a make-out session with a known dictator and murderer. A murderer, I might add, that I have been personally victimized by."

Negaduck ran a hand down his face. There was a dark, cruel gleam in his eye, and the way held his beak looked like he was just barely holding back a comment. Gosalyn uncurled herself, sitting rigidly across from him.

"Say it," she challenged.

He growled, and the sound was almost a comfort for her. It put her right back on familiar ground. He turned so that he was facing away from her.

"I've got nothin' to say," he grumbled.

Gosalyn was loath to admit this, but sometimes—just sometimes—she hated this new and improved Negaduck more than the old one. She was used to the other one, with his hateful and evil ways. At least she could always get a good row going with him. This new way he acted with her seemed like he was walking on eggshells around her, wary of any word he might say being taken the wrong way. She needed him to go back, just for a while, to the manipulative killer that he was. Then, maybe, she could see sense, see that she was being crazy for even entertaining the idea of being attracted to him.

"I can't just get over it," she muttered.

She was picking, hoping for a fight. She knew it was a dirty, childish tactic, and one that shouldn't even be entertained in a normal relationship. But theirs was one far from normal. She needed the catharsis of a fight. But Negaduck stared determinedly away from her.

"I wasn't going to _say_ anything."

She shifted in her seat. It was like she had an itch she couldn't scratch. That logical voice that had been oh-so vocal earlier, causing her to stop making out with St. Canard's self-proclaimed king, was now urging her to let it go—to not fight. She knew she was probably going crazy, but sometimes she wished her inner her would shut up. She sighed—really more of an aggravated, disgusted groan—and shoved herself to her feet.

"I need to talk to Morg," she said, turning toward the door.

"Gonna be hard to do," he called after her, and if she wasn't mistaken, a touch of that ol' Negaduck-style of perverse glee was in that statement.

Gosalyn stopped, genuine confusion on her face. "Why?"

He stood, stretched his back, and jerked a thumb toward a boarded-up window that would've looked out over the city.

"I have her and a group out on a job. The so-called mayor of this junkyard of a city tried to bring a certain item into that joke of a museum. I have no idea what that knob thought he was doing, but, hey, I also think it's one helluva joke that he's still insistent that he's still the mayor of anything."

Gosalyn crossed her arms, glaring. "He _is_ the mayor, Negs. He was elected. You know, by the people? He didn't feel the need to stomp into town, cause murder and mayhem, and then proclaim himself king of the city. Probably why his approval rating was so high in the first place."

Another "whaddya gonna do" shrug. "His loss. My way is loads more fun."

Gosalyn dug her fingernails into her own flesh, holding on to her own arms for dear life. Oh, if this stupid necklace didn't stop her from using weaponry of any kind… Quiverwing Quack would gladly show this tyrant where exactly he could get off. Instead, she just shook her head.

"So she's at the museum?"

Negaduck nodded and walked over to the television. It had been off for a while, given that neither one of them had been exactly paying attention to it. Gosalyn felt her cheeks redden a touch at that thought, and she tried to tell herself that it was because of the aggravation she was feeling… but every part of her knew that wasn't true. She moved until both she and Negaduck were standing just a foot or so back from the screen, where he grabbed the remote and turned it on. He went into its settings, switching it to a different input port, and suddenly hundreds of tiny little screens webbed itself across the single, large one. Muttering to himself, he scrolled through them until he finally said, "ah, here," and clicked on one. It went full sized, now the focus of the television, and Gosalyn gasped, her brain finally catching on to what her eyes were seeing. She whirled on the Mallard Menace.

"You've got all the security cameras in the city wired to here?" she said, jabbing a finger at the TV.

He grinned, perfectly Cheshire. "Of course I do. I wasn't born yesterday."

Her face flushed again, and this time it _was_ from anger. But, if she was honest, she knew it wasn't all directed at him. Mostly, but not all. No, some of it was actually at herself. Of _course_ he had the city wired! It was as if a light had been shed on a dark corner of her thoughts. It explained so much, so many difficulties her rebels and she had had on past raids. It had always felt that he, somehow, had seen her coming. Because, in fact, he had.

"I don't believe this," she fumed.

His grin stretched, and there was a devious playfulness to it. "You're mad."

He sounded pleased. She wondered, for a moment, what the necklace would do if she punched him, just once, in that stupid beak of his. Instead, she took a deep breath and forced her focus onto the television, where it appeared that he hadn't lied. Morgana, along with a band of thugs, were now approaching an item—whose identity Gosalyn couldn't discern from the camera's angle—that was on a pedestal, under glass. She arched a brow. She had been trapped in this skyscraper for nearly a whole year—eight months, if her math was right—and this was the first she was hearing of Morgana personally being sent out on a mission.

"The item's magical?"

Negaduck nodded. "Powerful, too. Well, supposed to be. I told Morgana that any one of the other witches were likely to bungle it, so she ought to go."

The thugs, on the screen, were fanning out in a semicircle around the pedestal while Morgana approached it from the center of their formation. She had her hands raised, and her beak was moving. There was no sound on this feed, so Gosalyn didn't know exactly what she was saying—she could make an educated guess that it was a spell. Morgana was wiggling her fingers over the glass as she said her spell, and the feed on the camera started to wibble and get very static-y. Magic and technology never seemed to meld too well. Gosalyn turned to Negaduck, about to interrogate him on the item about to be stolen, when suddenly he slammed his fist down on the console holding the television.

"What?" he growled.

Gosalyn turned, her eyes widening. A group of masked heroes suddenly emerged, firing full scale upon Morgana and her group of thugs. Gosalyn easily picked out Blue Steel from the approaching crew, as well as a burly duck she didn't recognize. She squinted, feeling like there was something oddly familiar about his outfit. It all clicked into place for her when he fired an arrow toward Morgana. The witch transformed it into a bat with a snap of her fingers, but he was already nocking another arrow. His outfit was a perfect blend of the styles of Honker's Arrow Kit getup, and her own Quiverwing Quack. She stared closer at the build of the duck… and then she noticed his own auburn hair. Her eyes widened.

It was Tank. Of all the people to don a hero's garb… it was Tank Muddlefoot. The other three heroes were all recognizable as old members of the rebellion, but Tank was definitely a new addition. Negaduck snarled.

"This was supposed to be a quick in-and-out!"

Gosalyn watched her rebels move, going full-tilt against Negaduck's gang. They weren't letting up, firing arrow after arrow, shot after shot, punch after punch. The thugs and Morgana were falling back, quickly leaving the camera's view. Negaduck swapped screens, putting them as entering this new camera's view from the right side of the television. Then, from the left, another small group of heroes appeared, ready to fight. This crew… they were outnumbered. The shots were still being taken by the heroes, and one thug fell—a kill shot made by Tank's new hero persona. Gosalyn couldn't help but shoved a shocked hand over her beak, barely stifling a gasp. Sure, she had killed as a hero—which directly went against all of Darkwing's teachings. But it had always been a last-ditch situation, never a first choice. There had been several other options available in that moment. But Tank had chosen to kill. She shook her head.

"They're going to kill them. They're here to make sure they don't get away… ever again," she murmured.

"Morg's magic is good… but not under this level of attack. This is a damn blitz. They're dead," Negaduck said.

It wasn't exactly a nonchalant statement… nor did it have the weight it should have had on it. Gosalyn stared at the self-proclaimed King of St. Canard. His beak was pulled down into a grimace, his hands fisted on top of the console. He wasn't taking this defeat lightly. Gosalyn looked back to the screen, seeing Morgana magick a few other arrows into randomly harmless things. But it was easy to see that the witch was tiring. The heroes, on the other hand, looked as if they could go all night.

Her heart thudded in her chest. She could feel her pulse quicken, a pressure at the back of her eyes making them hurt as she fought tears. She couldn't lose Morgana. It was a hard truth to reckon with, especially with everything she knew about her father's former girlfriend. Especially after all the anger she had held for her for her betrayal of them all. But she couldn't lose her, didn't want to lose her. Despite everything, despite everything she did and wanted to feel for the witch… Morgana had been her family. Honestly, she was the last scrap of family she had left.

"There's got to be something you could do!" she snapped at Negaduck. "Surely you're not just gonna give up!"

Negaduck turned to her, somewhere between shock and rage. He gestured wildly at the screen. "What do you want from me, Gos? A miracle? Sorry, snookums, but you're barking up the wrong tree for that!"

Every muscle in her body screamed at her to hit him, just one quick punch. She quelled that instinct in light of the emergency. "You can't give her an escape plan? You don't have a way to talk to her?"

"Of course I have a way to talk to her. She's wearing an earpiece," he said, grabbing a seemingly random headset off the console and tossing it to her. "But I don't have a damn escape plan. Your precious rebels were supposed to be across town dealing with a fire that I had another one of my gangs set."

Gosalyn, for a moment, wondered what was going on in that scenario. Had this other gang still set the fire because, by her count, every fighting member of her rebellion was now at this museum. She could guess her rebels' plan… kill Negaduck's witch. She had no idea how they had found out about Morgana, since Gosalyn herself hadn't known until she had been captured. Did they have a spy within the tower? That led to a whole different set of panicked questions. But she pushed it all aside as she stared at the headset now in her hands.

"They're your rebels," Negaduck said, as if in explanation. "You know them better than anyone. Get her out."

She stared at him. She shook her head. "No. I-I-I can't."

It would be the final betrayal, wouldn't it? First, falling for Negaduck… then this. She turned away from the screen, just catching sight of a quickly tiring Morgana doing her best. There was only one thug left, who was also clearly exhausted. If she did this… and she could, honestly… then that was it, wasn't it? No turning back?

She thought of her father, wondering what Darkwing would think of his daughter now. A brief image of Honker's smiling face flashed before her eyes, followed by varied others of her rebellion against Negaduck. Then, surprisingly, Morgana's own face danced in her mind's eye, from both before Darkwing's death and more recently. She recalled the kindness with which the witch had treated her, she remembered her advice.

_Negaduck's the law… but you could be the order_.

"She will die, Gosalyn," Negaduck growled. "You're the only one who can do this."

She closed her eyes, hugging the headset close. Breathing hard, as if she had been running, she whirled, shoving on the headset. She rolled the switch on the wire until it clicked.

"Morg, it's Gos. I can see you, so nod once if you can hear me," she said.

It was quick, but Morgana nodded. Gosalyn huffed. "Good. Now, listen close. The big guy, lobbing the arrows? I'm ninety-nine percent certain I know who he is. If that's the case, aim for his right ankle and knee. He'll go down easy."

Morgana whirled, fast as lightning, and lobbed a ball of magical injury right at Tank's right knee, as per Gosalyn's instructions. He howled, soundlessly on this feed, his face contorted in pain as he fell, his bow sliding from his grip. Tank had suffered a pretty bad football injury that had kept him from going pro. She barked at Morgana to aim at Blue Steel's left shoulder. Cecilia had hurt it during a fight against some more of Negaduck's goons a little more than a year ago. She continued to bark orders, watching with bated breath as Morgana and the thug began to make a comeback in the fight. Gosalyn was more than thankful that no kill shots had been made on the rebels, all of them just knocked down or out. Before long, they were taking out the last of the surprise attackers, and Gosalyn felt like she could breathe again.

"Get the hell out of there. _Now_ ," she said.

Negaduck looked like he was going to protest, obviously thinking about his precious item from the museum. Gosalyn jabbed a finger in his face. "My rebels never stay down for long, and that damn thing was probably a decoy planted for just this occasion anyhow. Forget it! Morgana, haul ass!"

On screen, Morgana grabbed the remaining thug by the collar of his shirt and vanished, as if she had just faded away. Gosalyn took off the headset, putting it back down on the console. She stared hard at it, unwilling to raise her eyes.

"You ordered _my_ witch out," Negaduck growled.

She pursed her beak and remained silent. She was aware of the Mallard Menace moving, and she could see, out of the corner of her eye, that he put his back to her. After a second, he turned back around, and his body language seemed a tad more relaxed.

"You got one of my gangs out," he noted.

At this, Gosalyn's head shot up. She glared. "I got Morg out."

Negaduck crossed his arms, that teasing, dark grin back on his smug face. "Who was only caught up in this because I ordered her to steal me something. You helped my gang get off scot free."

Her stomach rumbled. She felt like she was going to be sick. When she put her hands down at her sides, she realized they were shaking.

"I didn't have a choice," she mumbled.

"You could have let her die. She betrayed you by siding with me, after all."

The statements were cold and calculating. In fact, it was exactly the sort of thing the Negaduck she was more familiar with would say. That only served to deepen her revulsion. Taking one shaky step after another, she didn't stop until she was leaning against one of the posts of the bed. She grasped onto like it was the last lifesaver on a sinking ship. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt arms wrap around her midsection and a kiss be planted against her neck.

"You were perfect," he breathed into her ear. He planted another kiss against her neck, and Gosalyn felt like her body was going to rip in half.

She turned, facing him. He hadn't stepped back, and he hadn't removed his arms from around her. She met his eyes and forced her body to steady itself.

"I won't help you destroy the rebellion. This was a one-time only deal."

"You won't help me… _yet_."

" _Ever_."

He kissed her, and unlike the last time they had had a similar conversation, she didn't push him away. Instead, she allowed herself to fold against him, savoring the feel of him. He reached up and wound his hand in her hard, pulling. She dug her fingers into him, scratching her nails over his shoulders. He broke the kiss with a wild grin, his eyes flashing.

"You'll be my queen yet."

He didn't give her a chance to protest, smothering her words with another rough kiss. The voice that liked to scream and berate her in her head was back. But now, it whispered in a malicious hiss.

_Monster_ …

The guilt was too much, and it felt like her very heart would burst with it. So, she squashed the voice, pulling Negaduck onto the bed. She knew she wasn't there yet, that she wouldn't let him have his victory over her tonight. Gosalyn was never one to go down without a fight. But now, she would use his kisses, his wandering touches over her body, to forget that she was falling further and further down into the darkness than she had ever planned to go. That it was okay to cling to him, for now.

_Sure, it is,_ the voice said, dripping with sarcasm. _Keep telling yourself that_.


End file.
